


Ours and In-Between

by lahijadelmar



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Married Couple, One Shot, Pre-War, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 14:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14166678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lahijadelmar/pseuds/lahijadelmar
Summary: Margot recalls a time she ran into original Nick (literally) pre-war, pre-synth.Nebulous part of the 'Ours' series, detailing the partnership, friendship, romance and marriage of Nick and my Sole, Margot.





	Ours and In-Between

**Author's Note:**

> I just can't get enough of these two. I want to write about them forever. This will have to do for now!

Nick just drifted these days, little more than a numb life raft of a human being coasting along and going through the motions until some semblance of normalcy returned. It would never come, he already knew this. Jenny was gone (his fault, he should’ve never let her follow him here), Eddie Winter had slipped permanently out of his grip and the case was closed. Done. Finished. No victory. No vengeance. Not that making Eddie a sieve would bring Jenny back or mend the tatters of his being, but couldn’t he at least have  _ that _ ? Could he not spare some other poor bastard from losing his future wife by taking out the trash?

 

He barely felt or thought anymore, no spark of interest for the cases brought to him. The weird therapy brain scan thing they’d done at C.I.T had done jack squat (as he knew would be the case) and he was...alone. Left to wander. Left to pick up the pieces. He didn’t know whether to have a rage stroke or collapse into tears most days, so he chose the path of least resistance and stayed firmly planted on the ‘Denial’ stage of grief and he planned to be so for the foreseeable future. 

 

He had to keep being Nick the cop, after all, the one who seemed to solve everyone’s problems but his own. 

 

This drifting apparently had begun to impact him in a more physical sense, as it was on this particular morning, in the hallway of the Boston Municipal Court, that he walked head first into someone, his (thankfully lukewarm) coffee splashing the front of her white blouse, the stacks of files she’d been carrying drifting to the floor like leaves on the wind. 

 

“My god-...! Miss, I am  _ so _ sorry…” 

 

He immediately knelt down and helped to gather up her papers and files as best he could, though he imagined whatever organization had been there prior was good and screwed now. 

 

“S’alright,” she replied, surprisingly good natured about the whole thing. “Was never a big fan of this blouse, needed an excuse to toss it. Better cold coffee than my baby’s vomit, but I had my fingers crossed anyway.” 

 

Nick huffed out a laugh as they both started to fall into this sort of odd exercise of re-sorting all the files and papers together, both kneeling there on the marble floor. What a sight they must have made. 

 

“It’s uh...it’s probably a bit troubling a detective can’t keep an eye out long enough to miss running into the person directly in front of him, but I…I haven’t been myself lately. Again, I’m sorry.” 

 

“You just have your head full of cases, that’s all,” the woman offered with a reassuring, slightly teasing smirk. “I bet you’re solving one right now. Don’t tell me...it was Miss Scarlet, with a candlestick, in the library.”

 

Nick laughed again, for the first time (he just realized) since everything happened. 

 

“Lead pipe, actually, but the blunt force trauma on the victim would’ve been similar enough.” 

 

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind when I represent Miss Scarlet in court,” the woman joked, accepting the last of the papers from him. He helped her to standing, quite unnecessarily but he felt it was the least he could do. “Well, thank you kindly, Detective. This has been quite the meet-cute.” 

 

“It sure has,” Nick agreed, realizing now (somewhere, in some break in his constant haze) that this woman was... _ mind blowingly gorgeous, _ in such a way that he wondered how he had been able to speak in full sentences to her up to this point. “Maybe we can do it again sometime? I’ll bring the cold coffee, you make with the files.” 

 

She laughed, a lovely bell-like sound that made his chest tighten.

 

“It’s a date,” she said and clicked away on her heels, her arms full. 

 

Nick knew he owed this woman a debt for lifting his impossibly heavy spirits even for that short amount of time. 

 

And he didn’t even know her name. 

 

* * *

  
  
  


Margot jolted awake suddenly, rattling the bed a bit as she did so and making her husband almost jump 5 feet off his desk chair. 

 

“Jesus, Margie…! You alright? Bad dream or something?” 

 

She was grinning big at him, the dream she’d just had still rattling around in her brain. 

 

“We met before, Nick. Before all of this. I had  _ completely _ forgotten, but the memory came back to me just now.” 

 

“ _ Well _ ,” Nick mused. “It’s...certainly plausible. You and pre-bombs Nick were roaming around Boston in...similar circles, I don’t see why not.” 

 

“I don’t know if you’d remember,” she said, deflating a little. “It might have been after the brain scan. Lukewarm coffee? I’ll bring the files?” 

Nick was at a loss. He remembered his human counterpart’s life to pretty extensive detail most of the time, but he knew well he’d never seen Margie before the daring rescue from Skinny’s vault. He’d have  _ remembered  _ a face like hers. He shook his head. 

 

“Sorry, no dice.” 

 

It caused a little sliver of disappointment in him that he  _ didn’t _ remember, one more piece of evidence that he wasn’t really who he masqueraded to be.  _ True _ , that personality confusion and turmoil had gotten easier with Margie’s arrival in his life, but it occasionally reared its ugly head. Nothing was going to change the fact that Nick existed prior, had an entire life and being he’d crafted all his own, while Nick the Synth was just lucky to get imbued with what was left. 

 

Margot could sense this (she always could) and she got out of bed to come lean against his desk. He tried to put on a good face for her. 

 

“Now how am I supposed to get _ any _ work done when you’ve got your legs on display like that?” He commented on her choice of pajamas- one of his shirts (unbuttoned low enough to leave little to the imagination), panties, that was it. She thumbed his tie. 

 

“You accidentally ran into me, spilled cold coffee all over my blouse,” she explained. “You were quite the gentleman.” 

 

“Huh. A  _ gentleman _ who clumsily spills coffee all over a beautiful woman. That’s a first for me.” 

 

He pulled her into his lap because,  _ of course _ , how could he even resist? 

 

“You said you’d been distracted- all apologies and thumbs. But you helped me pick up my files. I never told you they weren’t organized anyway because I can’t be bothered, not even then.”

 

“Yeah, I’d know better now, wouldn’t I?” 

 

Nick managed a laugh as he nuzzled her hair and squeezed her shapely thigh. 

 

“Maybe it’s better I don’t have a memory of this,” he conceded after a time. “I’d like to think Nick the Synth has a little better coordination, even with all the rusty bolts and faulty wires.” 

 

“Far more handsome too,” Margot added, seizing his tie again and pulling him in for a kiss.    

 


End file.
